My Little Golden Book of Phobias

I just ate an entire bag of "veggie chips". The back says there are 8 servings of 150 calories each so...I just had enough calories for the rest of the day, yeah! I don't feel guilty because I swam a mile today and had virtuous oatmeal and soymilk for breakfast. I think they shouldn't put the calories per serving on the backs of things. I know I am eating a lot of oil, salt and carbs. Don't flog me with calories. We need calories. They made Columbus convince Queen Isabella to give him some ships to find the spice route. Without calories, his presentation would have lacked pizazz. I do wish I could have been around for the arguments about round versus flat. I mean, you sail off into the pretty sunset and then----poof, you fall off the edge of the earth. Just like that. 

Here is a synopsis of my life as a midwife.

1. Wake up with a pounding heart because the pager has gone off and scared the crap out of you. Go to the birth. You never know when you will be home again. Could take hours, days, minutes. 

2. Lose a lot of sleep. Hang with the family cat/dog and your students. Eat whatever is around. Some families have their births catered, fercripesake. However, with my dietary restrictions, I can eat, oh, bread and bananas and peanut butter. 

3. Take naps in your clothes. Wake up and wonder where you are. Brush your teeth because your breath is dreadful.

4. Finally, the birth is nie (a scrabble word) and the babe is born. Then there is clean-up, suturing, more clean-up and a fair well goodbye. You drive home in a semi-awake stupor, veering back into your lane whenever you hit the yellow turtles. 

5. At home, the cats have had several fights so there are tufts of fur everywhere. Also, someone has pooped behind the big ficus. No one takes any credit for this. You clean up some more, feed the little darlings and eat a bowl of cold cereal. Then, depending on the time of day, you crawl to your bed under the skylight or you crash on the couch where it is a tad darker.

6. You wake up again, wondering where you are, what time is it, is it morning or night, is there any soy ice cream. Then you realize you have clinic in an hour. And you adrenals are broken. 

I am behaving like this retreat is PRISON and I have to watch all the movies, eat all the chocolate and stay up late NOW because there is serious depravation ahead. Voluntary, I know. You don't have to remind me. 

My friend Ruby told me about a teacher who runs retreats for 10 days and you just sit, you don't even do walking meditation. My legs would seriously fall off. I'd have to hop around on the stumps and look sadly at my former legs. Just lying there. All because I tried sitting for  10 hours straight.